“Blackwater is a company that began in 1996 as a private military training facility in — it was built near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. And visionary executives, all of them former Navy Seals or other Elite Special Forces people, envisioned it as a project that would take advantage of the anticipated government outsourcing.
Well, here we are a decade later, and it’s the most powerful mercenary firm in the world. It has 20,000 soldiers on the ready, the world’s largest private military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships. It’s become nothing short of the Praetorian Guard for the Bush administration’s so-called global war on terror. And it’s headed by a very rightwing Christian activist, ex-Navy Seal named Erik Prince, whose family was one of the major bankrollers of the Republican Revolution of the 1990s. He, himself, is a significant funder of President Bush and his allies.”
— Jeremy Scahill, from an interview on Democracy Now.
Not understanding the references to the Praetorian Guard, I researched it. One paragraph stands out:
Although its name has become synonymous with intrigue, conspiracy, disloyalty and assassination, it could be argued that for the first two centuries of its existence the Praetorian Guard was, on the whole, a positive force in the Roman state. During this time it mostly removed (or allowed the removal of) cruel, weak, and unpopular emperors while generally supporting just, strong, and popular ones. By protecting these monarchs, thus extending their reigns, and also by keeping the disorders of the mobs of Rome and the intrigues of the Senate in line, the Guard helped give the empire a much needed stability that led to the period known as the Pax Romana.Just read how many emperors were killed by these guards and how they began to reign themselves.
Only after the reign of Marcus Aurelius, when this period is generally considered to have ended, the guard began to deteriorate into the ruthless, mercenary and meddling force for which it has become infamous.
Just what we need in a democracy: Palace coups.
Update: Bernard Weiner of Common Dreams:
Outsourcing” jobs overseas is only the tip of the iceberg. How about the CheneyBush Administration “outsourcing” our military, our intelligence-gathering, our nation’s soul?
Taking private enterprise way beyond what is reasonable, or desirable, or safe, the CheneyBush Administration has turned over a huge raft of national-security functions to those not adequately trained, not accountable to the public or the law, not showing up on the political radar.
In short, CheneyBush have created what amounts to their own private legions — soldiers, intelligence analysts, security guards, construction experts, supply specialists, et al. — in effect, a “mercenary” force bought and paid for by the American taxpayer.
That’s why there will probably be no draft: There is no guarantee of loyalty from those dragooned into service. Besides, many draftees have politically-connected constituencies. But when one’s mercenary “volunteer” forces are totally beholden to the paymaster for their livelihood and under-the-table payoffs, they will dance with them that brung ‘em.
These are no small numbers. It’s estimated that in addition to the 160,000 regular troops in the field in Iraq, CheneyBush control anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 private assets (”independent contractors”). Nobody’s even sure under what “rules of engagement” these guys — many in security and reconstruction fields — operate, or whether they are accountable to anyone other than their corporate bosses’ and the financial “bottom line.”
History shows us the dangers involved when leaders have large extra-institutional forces at their command, such as the Praetorian Guards and Legions of ancient Roman Caesars, Hitler’s Brownshirts, Saddam’s Republican Guards, the private militias of political and religious leaders today in Iraq, Blackwater forces in control of New Orleans after Katrina, etc. By and large, these mercenaries swear allegiance to their employer, not to the rule of law, not to any constitution. The catastrophic damage done to democracy by the existence, and power, of these private forces can’t be over-stated.
News flash: Blackwater, the huge corporation that CheneyBush rely on for most of the non-military functions in Iraq and elsewhere, is buying combat aircraft. Do we really want a private air force, effectively operating under the aegis of the Executive Branch, conducting secret ops in our names?
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